Puzzled or Perplexed, Either Way Cant Figure This One Out, Water Entry/Retrieve

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This can't be a naturally occurring thing for any dog can it? Selective attitudes with water entries, depending on where the mat is? I would think this has to be a man made issue.
I would stop trying to fix it until I exhausted all avenues trying to find out what caused it.
The more trouble you have at the waters edge right now, the deeper ingrained this problem will become.
Walt

It's not really important to know what caused it ...it has to be fixed now...Most of the time the cause has nothing to do with the solution ...Live birds would be a good starter to try and loosen the dog up ...Steve S

"Your dog learns as much by doing his work right,by your praise and encouragement, as he does by your displeasure and correction." DLWalters

This can't be a naturally occurring thing for any dog can it? Selective attitudes with water entries, depending on where the mat is? I would think this has to be a man made issue.
I would stop trying to fix it until I exhausted all avenues trying to find out what caused it.
The more trouble you have at the waters edge right now, the deeper ingrained this problem will become.
Walt

It absolutely can be a naturally occuring attitude (fear), my first dog was the same way. To make an exaggerated point, I used to manage a marina with floating docks that were about 16" off the water, I had one Golden that was a natural dock jumper and my other dog who was fearfull of it. I didn't use any force, it never occured to me as I knew nothing about training dogs. The closer we were to the edge, the more fearful my dog was, even though he was quite birdy and wanted to retrieve, if I backed up ten yards or so and threw the bumper well away from the dock he would run down the dock and his momentum carried him into a long jump out into the water. This dog was the same way on land, good to go from a distance, fearful and hesitant from the shoreline. Obviously he got over it as he became a JH, SH and MH plus NAHRA titles and great duck hunting dog, all without ever being water forced.

I don't think the OP's dog has been forced, I don't think any hot spots have been created, my gut tells me this dog is like my old dog, he is a little fearful of water but birdy. That's why I sugested what I did in post #15. We know the dog willingly enters the water when run from a distance, as long as the dog is birdy and eager to retrieve, just keep running him from a distance at a non threatening entry spot. Then shorten up the entry little by little until the dog either balks, at which point you know what the critical distance is, or hopefully, the dog gets over the fear and enters willingly right off the shore.

John

ps, If it were my dog I would do a combination of what I just posted, then water force at the proper time in a conventional training program.

I've been reading this thread ,and have a question that keeps coming to mind. If the fear is at the waters edge would a possible solution be to take the dog past the waters edge ?,by that I mean wade in with the dog at heal (since it seems the problem is leaving land and entering water and not a typical water issue) wade in starting say calve deep ,then working back back from there . Until the dogs butt is just out of the water. I guess its kind of a left field thought ,but it keeps crossing my mind so I thought I would throw it out there.

I think wisdom would be to NOT run the spring hunt test season and work through this instead.

I will not run another test until this issue is resolved and she is consistently retrieving from the waters edge. I plan on attacking this with different approaches offered here prior to force fetch to see if I can correct the issue before beginning a program. Once I begin the program we are going to be out of the hunt testing scene for a little while.

I will not run another test until this issue is resolved and she is consistently retrieving from the waters edge. I plan on attacking this with different approaches offered here prior to force fetch to see if I can correct the issue before beginning a program. Once I begin the program we are going to be out of the hunt testing scene for a little while.

I hope you took my other post to heart, as I think most on here are overthinking this. I believe your dog is just like my first dog, after time it turned out to be no big deal. You don't need to unduly focus on this problem right now, just continue running him from a distance as long as he is eager. When you pick a program the issue will be dealt with in due time.